The Kiltartan History Book eBook

THE TINKER

“O’Connell was a great man. I never
saw him, but I heard of his name. One time I
saw his picture in a paper, where they were giving
out meal, where Mrs. Gaynor’s is and I kissed
the picture of him. They were laughing at me
for doing that, but I had heard of his good name.
There was some poor man, a tinker, asked help of him
one time in Dublin, and he said, ‘I will put
you in a place where you will get some good thing.’
So he brought him to a lodging in a very grand house
and put him in it. And in the morning he began
to make saucepans, and he was making them there, and
the shopkeeper that owned the house was mad at him
to be doing that, and making saucepans in so grand
a house, and he wanted to get him out of it, and he
gave him a good sum of money to go out. He went
back and told that to O’Connell, and O’Connell
said, ’Didn’t I tell you I would put you
in the way to get some good thing?’”

A PRESENT

“There was a gentleman sent him a present one
time, and he bade a little lad to bring it to him.
Shut up in a box it was, and he bade the boy to give
it to himself, and not to open the box. So the
little lad brought it to O’Connell to give it
to him. ‘Let you open it yourself,’
says O’Connell. So he opened it, and whatever
was in it blew up and made an end of the boy, and
it would have been the same with O’Connell if
he had opened it.”

HIS STRATEGY

“O’Connell was a grand man; the best within
the walls of the world. He never led anyone astray.
Did you hear that one time he turned the shoes on
his horses? There were bad members following him.
I cannot say who they were, for I will not tell what
I don’t know. He got a smith to turn the
shoes, and when they came upon his track, he went east
and they went west. Parnell was no bad man, but
Dan O’Connell’s name went up higher in
praises.”

THE MAN WAS GOING TO BE HANGED

“I saw O’Connell in Galway one time, and
I couldn’t get anear him. All the nations
of the world were gathered there to see him. There
were a great many he hung and a great many he got
off from death, the dear man. He went into a
town one time, and into a hotel, and he asked for his
dinner. And he had a frieze dress, for he was
very simple, and always a clerk along with him.
And when the dinner was served to him, ’Is there
no one here,’ says he, ’to sit along with
me; for it is seldom I ever dined without company.’
’If you think myself good enough to sit with
you,’ says the man of the hotel, ‘I will
do it.’ So the two of them sat to the dinner
together, and O’Connell asked was there any news
in the town. ‘There is,’ says the
hotel man, ’there is a man to be hung to-morrow.’
‘Oh, my!’ says O’Connell, ’what